Adding a Fill to a Diagonal Text Box in Illustrator

Question

The standard answer to the question of how to add a fill to a text box in Illustrator isn't working for me because it assumes that the text is horizontal. I'm creating a map in which virtually all the text is either on a path or at an angle, and the geniuses at Adobe decided that the text box fill should cover the x/y coordinates of the text box rather than the text box itself.

Are there any workarounds other than painstakingly placing a rectangle or stroke object behind every label? (It's a large map with about 500 labels, so the manual approach doesn't have much appeal.) A script or a plug-in perhaps?

Answer 1

Assumption: The background fill is created via the Appearance panel and the Convert to Rectangle effect. As described here. Note that for this effect to work well, you should start with straight horizontal, unrotated, text. Rotate it after it has been created using the effect described below.

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Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform... Will rotate the text and the extra fill. With the added addition of easily editing the rotation again if necessary.

Answer 2

This is not a fully automated approach, but it may help you. Anything more automated would likely require scripting.

1. Draw a rectangle, and click on the outline with the Area Type tool to add some text to the shape.

2. Use the Direct Selection tool (A), to select the box, open the Appearance Panel and change the fill.

3. Select the text with the Text Tool, and in the Paragraph settings set the text to centred, and in the Character settings adjust the baseline so the text is centred vertically inside the box.

You should end up with something like this

4. To rotate, use the Rotate Tool (R)

5. Once you have one text box made, you can just copy and paste it for additional labels and edit the the text with the Text Tool.

6. You use the Selection tool (V) to click and drag the edge handle of the box to resize it for longer/shorter text.